Pinewood: 80 Years of Movie Magic

Jonathan Ross returns to the BBC for this 80th birthday celebration of Pinewood studios, regarded as Britain's answer to Hollywood.

Started by J Arthur Rank, a methodist flour magnate it is 90 acres of sound stages in the Buckingham countryside. Classic films such as The Red Shoes were filmed here, the Bond series and Carry on. In fact we learnt that it was comedies that kept Pinewood going as they were profitable and lower budget.

Ross recreated some famous scenes such as Bond stunts, he even managed to glean some exclusives for the upcoming SPECTRE as well as speaking to former Pinewood stars such as Joan Collins and Barbara Windsor.

An interesting look at the history of a stalwart of the British film industry. Maybe it concentrated too much on the Bond films.

Once a cutting-edge presenter with THE LAST RESORT, Jonathan Ross has been seamlessly absorbed into the mainstream, with his Saturday night chat show follow in the venerable tradition of PARKINSON and RUSSELL HARTY PLUS.

Immaculately attired in blue blazer and gray slacks, he strutted arrogantly through this documentary celebrating eighty years of Pinewood Studios, interviewing celebs and generally having a good time trying out carefully choreographed stunts such as crashing a car with a stunt person, or sitting in the studio tank while watching another stunt person re-enact a sequence of a damsel in distress. Ross always looked thoroughly pleased with himself, as if he were well aware of his celebrity status and expecting his interview subjects to bow before him. Director John Hodgson emphasized his preeminence in this program by including several reaction shots of Ross grinning and smiling at his interviewees" reminiscences.

If we looked beyond Ross's smarmy charm into the real meat of this program, the subject-matter was of interest. Eighty years ago Pinewood Studios was opened by J. Arthur Rank as a direct response to Hollywood. He established his own dream-factory, supported by the Charm School, where wannabee actors learned how to speak perfect English and comport themselves properly on screen. Dame Joan Collins offered valuable reminiscences of this era, as she was transformed from a suburban miss into the archetypal "bad girl," before moving on to Hollywood.

One of the most poignant sequences came when Hayley Mills recalled her days of working at the studio with her father John and sister Annette: for that family, Pinewood became almost a second home. Likewise Dame Barbara Windsor, who spent much of the Sixties and Seventies filming the CARRY ON sequence of films there; although cheaply made, they were highly profitable at the box-office.

The program ended with a predictable narration of Pinewood's contribution to the major action films of the past three decades or so, including SUPERMAN, STAR WARS, and more recently KICK-ASS. To learn about the ways in which such effects were created was mildly interesting, but Hollywood studios do much the same thing, often on bigger budgets.

An interesting documentary, but it could have worked much better without Ross's presence at the center.

Nowhere in this false documentary is coverage of even basic informational data or roster and discussion of either the classic Pinewood library of films or stars.

It is truly a completely self-absorbed self-aggrandizing public relations/marketing piece pushing both the James Bond 'Spectre' due out for release, spotlighting the current year's industry identity politic --- compliments of the neo-BBC, which has zero respect for "80 years of" a classic British film studio.

20 years ago, we had remakes taking over theaters, literally over-shadowing and overwriting classic films in both public consciousness and burying web search results of the originals. Ex. New generations of youth looking up a classic movie title would be deflected to find, discover and consume the current current salable commericial product and also be indoctrinated by it in some cases, extinguishing the old. And now we have a flurry of documentaries that distort, undermine and bury real history and context and informational in an ADD world.

With this documentary we have the same tactic with documentary: (b) one heavy exploitation tactic of using a false documentary title with lure to trick those to consume their promotional message for a pre-release of a corporate product (b) other bonus parts for the creeps is to impart some politics and at same time distort, hide, bury and undermine the real history and impace of Pinewood studios! (Ex. James Bond 'Spectre' is not equatable nor representative at all to the impact or even the categorical type of films in the Pinewood Studio canon)

Sadly, this is status quo - a bunch of bad companies, mega-corporate entities who control 99% of communications and web sites today, who seemingly use and malign 'words' to sound benign, but the sad reality is that their actions are completely misanthropic and corrupted by commericialism and bad ethics politics. It's called fraud and farce - like this documentary. Disingenuous supreme.

This is like the equivalent of making a documentay 80 years of Hollywood and then showing a large portion of running with lame host doing stunt car scenes and promoting a 2015 mainstream Hollywood picture due out in Summer.

While am not British, however have seen many Pinewood films over decades with a special appreciation for those made 1940s to early 1970s. This period are where the classics and heritage of British film industry lie --- not in absolute trash like 21st Century action movie banking off of past glorius franchises. And for a British Broadcasting Company (BBC) to fail so miserably and intentionally really says something about how little knowledge or care they actually for the topic, shockingly and with zero integrity. Given the nature and association such a company actually has historically with such an area, it certainly reflects on all their other current output - distorted news with agenda (motivated by commercial and politics interests) no matter if government, music, film, the arts. Very sad.

Additionally, if anything, it would not be far-fetched to assume that this documentary is just another example of some spiteful agenda to erase British film-making heritage, undermining it entirely with the tactic of merely give title, 'Pinewood - 80 Years of Movie Magic" and then discarding with little to no mention of its real history and classic output.

I think this documentary though is useful is exposing the completely selfish and disingenuous nature and goals of its creator - the BBC.

I was initially excited to see a documentary on Pinewood. But barely a mention of any star (besides later era Pinewood star Collins) nor any of the classics - no valuable data whatsoever. After 1/2 hour of James Bond Spectre promo, interview with a certain young actress in Bond (who has zero to do with Pinewood legacy or output really), and then the car stunt action mock segment, I skimmed and after 2 minutes seeing only a small segment with Joan Collins and then total FILLER in the weakest attempt to "cloak and justify" itself, finally turned it off. Right into the trash. Duped.

A true disgrace, insult to British film-making, culture and farce. I guess the BBC wants to burn it all, revise, replace, exploit for current self-interests and profit only.